I’m not in New Orleans for Mardi Gras. I grew up spending Dad’s leave time driving from duty station to visit kin in Alabama; I expect that’s how my husband and I will operate now that we have our first child, Emelyn. On this trip we take our infant daughter south and stop in TN to introduce her to Uncle Barry and Aunt Susie. She gets to tour the Jack Daniel’s Distillery, where we forgo letting her sample the goods. Next up: Vernon, Alabama. She meets her great-grandmothers then we continue south, dragging my parents to New Orleans to visit my sister.
Dan has been to New Orleans, but not having relations there before, I haven’t. We drive through Mississippi, and Daddy tells us once again of his ambition to travel the entire distance of the Natchez Trace. We continue lower both latitudinally and atmospherically until we arrive at a little double shotgun off a parade route Uptown where Emelyn meets Aunt Faith. Faith gives us a quick tutorial as I admire a box of carnival beads: how to say New Orleans properly (think Nu-are-lins), strict instructions not to get on a Streetcar to Desire, and restaurant information, “They are all good.” Armed with this briefing we set out.
I try to memorize every detail of the Café DuMonde, where we sip steamed-milk chicory coffee and get our fingers covered with sugar from beignets while a muddy “Ol’ Man River” imperceptibly moves along. Deep in the French quarter, we wheel Emie’s carriage to find the best pralines in a tiny candy store while admiring the wrought iron lattice work of balconied brick buildings. Faith is right: we can’t find bad food anywhere. Each meal is more delicious than the last. We prowl around and poke into shops and eateries and wind up in my Uncle John’s favorite, Petunias, for a full-blown feast of the “World’s Largest Crepes.” I savor each bite of “The Saint Francis” with shrimp, Louisiana crabmeat, and Ratatouille with Swiss cheese sauce. Meanwhile Em is stuck in a stroller waiting to acquire a taste for crepes in her future milk.
We do not go around the corner to Bourbon Street with the baby. As a matter of fact, I might avoid that famed place altogether, but my secret love of live Jazz Music beckons me down the alley to Preservation Hall tonight. After putting the baby in her travel crib and leaving Grandparents on guard while she sleeps, we free ourselves of parenting for a few hours to soak up the moist hot night air of spring in Louisiana.
“This isn’t as bad as I thought,” I tell Dan as we enter the crowd of partiers and pass a few bars on Bourbon.
“It used to be a lot worse. They would try to pull you into the strip clubs.” Only a few minutes after he declares the new tameness of this red-light district, I have to avoid looking into doorways and avoid looking right or left.
“Best show in town. Come on in!” a barker yells when we are jostled toward his doorway.
“No thank you.” I keep my eyes straight ahead.
He yells at me, “Then, what the ______ did you come to Bourbon Street for, Lady?”
“Just trying to get to Preservation Hall. . .” my steps quicken.
We finally arrive at an unpainted stucco building and are in line under the old balcony. Our turn through the gated door comes quickly, and our feet pad curling wood floors to find a seat on a long wooden bench so close to the musicians I feel the heat roll off their bodies. Here live music is a religious experience. An ancient African-American woman, as wiry as a ten-year-old, pounds the keys of the upright piano athletically in her “Sunday-go-to-meeting suit.” I am standing and clapping and dancing as the Holy Spirit of Jazz takes hold of me. They play so tight; I can’t tell if they’re jamming or they have all this scatting memorized from nightly sessions. The musicians barely take time to clean the sweat off their faces as they coax their trombones and saxophones into more and more amazing and inventive sounds.
Dan looks in worse shape than the tuba player about to pass out from the heat, but I beg, just one more, with a finger held up and pleading eyes. (I could sit here all night, but he’s a better parent.) Above the raucous applause and hoots between songs, someone hollers, “Play the Saints!” The sax player shakes his head and points to the tip jar. “Requests $10; The Saints $20!” After a few more songs, Dan leans over, “We really got to go.”
But wait, I hear it coming. The trombonist slides on down and the drummer rolls up. There it is! “Oh, when the saints, (Oh, when the saints!) Go marching in, (Go marching in!)” I feel inexplicable tears come to my eyes and want to raise my hands in a “Hallelujah!” I march in place and dance through ten minutes of iconic jazz that will fade as I go north into a cool spring, but will return in whispers each time my daughter brings out the giant box of Mardi Gras beads Aunt Faith donates. Pass me the light-up-purple ones , and let me march on in.
Think about this: If your life had a soundtrack, what genre would it feature? Any particular groups or songs we would hear?
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